OK, OK

I should probably update y'all, huh? Truth be told, there still hasn't been a lot of action on the ol' planning front, although Kyle did have his first wedding-related nightmare three weeks ago (and I had one a few days before that). While I now have twice dreamed about totally forgetting to plan for my wedding until someone reminds me the day of, in his dream, we had, like a week. Still, stressful, no? What didn't help was watching Wedding SOS over the weekend -- have any of you seen this show? Basically, the premise that couples with wedding days fast approaching call on the help of this famed (uh, "famed") British wedding planner who whips them into shape and provides them three "wishes" -- favors that she'll do for them. The first episode we saw was the most panic-inducing. A lesbian couple in their 40s were getting married, but three days before their wedding ceremony, they had nothing -- NOTHING! -- done. I mean, I understand procrastination (boy, do I ever), but that's just nuts! The second couple made me feel like punching. This time, it was three weeks before the wedding, but nothing was done (uh, except they'd ordered wedding invites with the wrong date and time). There were two kickers: The bride was a professional event planner (!!) and her husband-to-be was on a three-month vacation, but had used the time not to plan, but to take naps. My blood pressure skyrocketed just watching these folks, and Kyle looked like he was gonna pass out.

Anyway, so with that sort of thing in mind, two weeks ago, we spent a recent Saturday looking up the cost to rent a tent -- the venue insists that we get one, given the size of the crowd (we're looking at having about 150 folks) and trying to figure out if we should rent a party bus to transport people to the park, since there is only metered parking or parking garages nearby. We didn't come up with anything conclusive on any of the fronts, although we do have one lead -- my stepmother said the hotel my stepsis had for her wedding had its own shuttle that people could use for free ... so I think we're going to check that out, because, DAMN, one of those party bus things costs, like, $1,000. Ouch.

In other news, I finally -- FINALLY! -- sent my sister a little present and a request that she be my bridesmaid/maid of honor (although she might not actually know that she'll be the only one -- I'm not sure if my mom told her or not). Anyway, I gussied up the request with one of these "paper" dresses, which is actually the last crafty thing I've done lately, sigh. I wish I'd have taken a picture of the daggone thing before I sent it out, but maybe I can get her to send me one.
As to the wedding invites, well ... we know what we're going to do for our save-the-date (I'll post a preview image up here soon), and I have sort of an idea of what to do for our invites, although I have yet to run it by Kyle, so we'll see ... anyway, luckily for us, we have several friends who are graphic designers/work for major printers, so I think we're gonna try and use their resources because, man, this shit is expensive. Over the weekend, I joined a few other people in helping Colleen and Mike put together their invites. Man, even with six of us working on it (and with Mike as the accomplished designer of said invites and the rest of us as fairly talented crafty folks) it took a looong time to finish. So, yeah, I've gotta be prepared for that. Must not go crazy with the DIY-ness.

As to colors, the plan as it stands is to have sort of a toned-down grass green, (not super-bright) yellow and brown be the dominating theme. There are lots of wildflowers along the river, so natural summery colors like that should work out really nicely, I think, and Kyle was a fan because they're not super-girly. Thanks to the wildflowers I probably won't go too crazy in including flowers as part of the centerpieces, either -- I like flowers, but they're not the end-all for me, so I'm thinking that our centerpieces will be more, like, candles and such, with a few flowers scattered in there. We'll see.

We think we've got the food thing hammered down, too. Of all places, Katzinger's seems to be the most within our budget, and seemed to have the best veggie options (Kyle will be trying out their chicken offerings for the omnivores). So, we're looking to kick it buffet style, sans servers, but with some good eats. Yay. As to the wedding cake ... I dunno, I'm still leaning toward wedding cupcakes, actually. We've also discussed having a family friend (who made her own cake when she got hitched) make a cake, or asking people to bring sweets, potluck-style. So that is TBD.

No dress yet, either. I'm still looking at something short, like just below my knees, and it will probably end up being a bridesmaid dress in white/gray/cream. Here's some favorites so far:

From Max Studio (sigh, if this was in white, I would snap it up, and I'm still tempted ...)
From Anthropologie (Would big boobs work with this? Would I look preggers? I dunno)
From Simple Dress (Although I sort of love this color)

Oh, but I'm pretty sure on the shoes. I can't get these out of my head, as they're pretty much everything I could ask for -- simple, cute, comfy looking, non-leather, not mind-blowingly expensive -- yay!

OK, folks so now that you've seen what I'm sort of aiming for, if you see anything that might fit the bill, please send it my way!